


Different Relationships

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse, DCU Animated
Genre: Crack Pairings, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-31
Updated: 2006-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:16:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various requested crack pairings</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Relationships

They had been on mission for nearly three weeks, relying on one another for the basest of survival skills in the snowy mountains. 

Three weeks of lying next to one another, huddling close for body heat under a insulating blanket.

Three weeks of noticing, and pretending not to, that each had a physically perfect body.

They both give their briefings to the other members of the JLA inner council, going from the council chamber almost side by side.

When Connor moved to turn away, to go to his room aboard the Tower, Diana reached out, a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned, just in time for her to step close and claim his lips, pressing the point when he parted his in surprise.

Too many thoughts passed through his mind, ranging from the feel of her body at night, to what his father would think, to the inevitable trouncing he would receive at Batman's hands for this.

None of them stopped him from blindly following her to her quarters. And the thoughts mostly vanished as the door closed and Diana, princess of the Amazons, proceeded to slowly remove every piece of gear and clothing they both possessed, on a lazy trip to her shower. Any protests the young man might have formed were hushed in her kisses, forbidden by the way her hands touched, smoothed, caressed his body.

He knew vaguely he should tell her he had no idea what to do, beyond the basic concept that she was a woman and he was a man, and the few crude remarks Eddie had tossed his way in their association.

As hot water and steam filtered around them in her shower, he realized she seemed to have full control of the situation, her hand taking his, boldly showing him how to touch her. He had never felt skin so soft, as he caressed first one smooth breast, and then the other. He was drawn to them, and felt her hand close on the back of his head before he had even realized he was sucking one nipple into his lips, worrying at it with his teeth when she moaned for him.

With his mouth occupied by exploring, tasting, licking at her breasts, he realized his hands were free to roam. When she pressed closer to him at being touched, he grew bolder, string calloused fingers delving along the curves and creases of that perfect body, finding just where she preferred to be touched. With the water beating down around them, he touched her intimately, and learned the pleasure of a woman's voice on his ears, as she coaxed his touch into giving her release.

Even as the shocks of fiery pleasure were ebbing for her, she gripped his chin, drawing his mouth back up to claim him again, tongue tasting the pure mouth. He gasped as her hand enfolded his hard length. The ache he had felt while he laid beside her on the mission, the one she had begun again with her first kiss, intensified, and nearly pulsed to explosion. Then her touch changed, applying pressure at the base of his shaft in such a way that his need faded, just enough, to give him control again.

She pressed against him, gentling her kisses some as she drew one leg up over his hip. He moaned again, softly, hesitantly, as she showed him the way to be with her. That first sensation of pressing inside her made him clench his hands on her arms, and she soothed him with light kisses on his ear, whispering that it was fine, that she had him. He shuddered as she moved, coaxing his instincts to thrust into her. He groaned once, his hips beginning to flex almost violently at the bliss she was inducing…and then his vision went white.

When he came back to himself, she was holding him clasped tight to her breasts, a gentle smile on her lips, in her eyes. 

He opened his mouth, to say something, anything, to acknowledge the gift she had shared.

Her finger on his lips, and a light pressure to move from the shower stilled the impulse. He thought he would have to dress, to leave…until she drew him to her bed, and he realized his lessons were only just beginning.

* * *

She had enjoyed the peace and quiet of the Fields for … she was unsure how long; time had no meaning here. She lounged in the warrior garb she had immortalized, watching as new souls grew accustomed to their new roles in the Afterlife.

"Uh hi!" A girl with too bright red lipstick, bright blonde hair and an all-concealing cloak of…eggplant purple came up and plopped down next to her. "You, umm, you're the original Wonder Woman?"

"The word 'original' is debatable, but yes, I am one of the Wonder Women, the mother of Diana." Hippolyta looked at the young lady and shook her head. "I don't know you, though."

"Oh, I'm just a friend of Robin's. I was Robin too, but not for long, before the big Bat kicked me out of his club." She said it nonchalantly.

"Never did see what my daughter saw in him," Hippolyta said. "I'm Queen Hippolyta, but my hero friends liked to call me Polly."

"Stephanie Brown, but they called me Spoiler." She shook her head. "Inside joke on the fact my dad was the Cluemaster…" She realized Polly was staring at her, not fully comprehending it. "Nevermind…call me Steph?"

"Steph," Polly said.

"I didn't mean to, you know, intrude…but you're the only hero I recognize here. I think I kinda got misdirected because I happened to come to Death's realm the same time as an Orpheus."

"Likely…there's been a large swell, and …clerical… errors are bound to happen." Polly gave a friendly enough smile. "You are most welcome to joi me; I've already visited with all my old friends from years gone by."

Steph looked sidewise at her. "Did you just insinuate I'm a friend?"

"I think you will be," Polly told her, with a smile so akin to Wonder Woman's that Steph just glowed and basked in it.

"I think so too."

* * *

He had known her nature. He had accepted it, and thought he had guarded himself well.

When Raven had killed Trigon in one last bid to take over the world, and she had lost so many that mattered, he had thought he could work within her slipped morality, carve himself a place to rule.

After all, his precious Robin was one of those lost. And Raven had been the last to be with him, the woman he had chosen when the youthful romance with Starfire had withered.

She accepted him, took him into her life, letting him do much as he pleased as she imposed her will on the remnants of humanity. And, somewhere along the way, their shared reference of Robin had drawn them into intimacy.

He should have known that was the beginning of the end.

She was deceptively gentle about it, taking him one final time, her long limbs a far cry from the child he had first known. He had found it entirely too simple a thing to be trusting, but a full year had passed, and then some, when she chose his end. 

It was only a kiss.

A final, uncompromising kiss that he could not break.

And then, only her words echoed around his soul on its way to judgment at long last.

"For my Titans, and my Robin."

* * *

He had not thought about the consequences of his actions. For once, Robin had not analyzed a situation. He had merely acted, trying to buy Kon the time his friend needed to save the day.

Superboy Prime had broken him like so much kindling.

Now he stepped inside the house, the only thing he saw in a dim grey vista, and tried hard to push his mind to accept what had happened.

He was dead, alone, and the afterlife was creepily empty.

His eyes adjusted to the interior of the house, seeing plants his intellectual mind told him were extinct, portraits of seven varied individuals, and…

Ted Kord. The Blue Beetle. A man Tim had known in life, a man that Tim had idolized for his brain, the sheer genius of his creations and ability to manipulate the Internet. A man that Barbara Gordon had considered her near equal in all things computerized.

"Hey, Tim. Might as well settle in; you're on the waiting list, like me," Ted said warmly, waving a hand at the cozy little house.

"Excuse me?" Tim's manners made a good shield against the way he was almost shaking. Ted saw it, saw the normally unflappable teen was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He walked over, laying a warm hand on Tim's shoulder.

"Easy, Robin…DiDi said none of the Afterlifes have us booked. She says a lot of times that means an encore performance," Ted told his younger friend, noting the height and maturity cloaking the kid now.

"We might go back?"

"Might. Can't tell." The inventor shook his head. "Until then, Tim…want to help keep me busy? I have a shop in her parlor…"

Tim flipped from freaking over his death to the fact his hero in the genius realms was asking him, Tim Drake, to help with a project.

"Yeah…I'd like to do that." He flashed a slow, shy smile up, and Ted just let an answering one escape in approval.

"We'll do just fine, until things work out." Ted squeezed the shoulder, and Tim just nodded. "You'll have to tell me how everyone was the last you saw them…especially Barbara."

"Well, she's been hip deep…"

`~`~`~`~`

It was when the nightmares started that Ted asked DiDi how this could be fair. He had always believed that death was supposed to be a peaceful place. DiDi had sorrowfully told him she could do nothing; sometimes human minds willingly pulled Dream's darker visage to them.

So Ted acted, out of concern, by going to the boy on his third night in the thrall of the nightmares.

Tim jerked convulsively awake as another presence could be felt. A gentle hand slipping to his shoulder as the bed shifted under the weight of a man sitting made him tense even more violently.

"Easy, Tim…I'm here if you need to talk." Ted's voice was gentle, inviting solace by sharing the pain.

"I'm fine, Ted." He closed his eyes against the urge to unburden himself; it was not Robin's way to do so.

"Yeah, and if I had believed my instincts, made my case better to the Bat, I might still be alive; a lot of people might be." Ted brushed Tim's hair back from his face. "So I'm pushing, believing in the idea that talking helps."

Tim opened his eyes to look up at the face of his friend, seeing honest concern, an offered rapport that no one had just offered him with no secrets already in the way. And it moved his lips to open, as he started telling this man, this hero no one had believed in, all the things that had torn Tim's soul to shreds over the years, sharing the burden that Robin had balanced.

By the tale's end, Ted was sitting against the headboard, legs stretched out on the bed, his fingers idly stroking Tim's hair from time to time. And Tim found that to be as much a comfort as sharing the burden had been.

`~`~`~`~`

Tim wanted to thank the inventor. The nightmares had faded; he could sleep now. If he often found reason to sleep on the couch, falling asleep as the two of them watched what passed for television in DiDi's house, Ted said nothing. Tim would always wake in his bed, tucked in tightly. And Ted would be in the living room, on the couch once more, head thrown back.

"You never told me why you never use your bedroom." Tim could be subtle, but this time, he wanted to be sure to approach the topic bluntly. Ted flinched, but shook his head.

"It's empty." The simple phrase conveyed the concept of a total void, lacking in any and all things Ted needed.

"Oh."

`~`~`~`~`

Ted lifted the teen in his arms, carrying him to his bedroom with a gentle fondness. He enjoyed the boy's company, far more than might have been healthy. Ted had never liked being solitary. And Tim brought so many things that made Ted's life rich, a peerage of minds and a surprisingly shared feeling of being outside the sphere of the heroes they ran with. Tim's was the Robin syndrome of being the leader, of being in the Bat's shadow, whereas Ted's was knowing he just had never really been effective, not the way he had always wanted to be.

Ted shifted Tim down to the pillow, reaching for the covers and going to pull them up when the teen's hand snaked out and caught on his wrist.

"This room's not empty," Tim said shyly, eyelids fluttering in a manner that made Ted's breath catch.

"Wouldn't be right," Ted muttered, more to himself, than in answer.

"Who says?" Tim ran that eerily strong touch up Ted's arm, until he touched his shoulder and squeezed. "Stay…"

"You have no idea what you're tempting me too," Ted whispered, sitting slowly on the edge of the bed. "You are everything I ever wanted to be, Tim."

The admission rocked the teen to his core, and he considered. He knew Ted had never wanted to be the butt of the jokes, that it had just come with a survivalist's instinct on how to hold on to the scrap of what he loved: being a hero.

"There's been more times than I can admit that I wished I could speak as boldly as you do," Tim whispered. "You kept going, through it all, and never failed to have a word to say on the matter."

"Not such a good thing to have," Ted told him, giving in to the urge to stroke the boy's hair back.

"Maybe…we can teach each other a little more about being heroes, and keep each other sane as…friends." Tim did not fawn to the touch, but his eyes did close. Ted drew his hand back, making to stand.

"We'll see…" He started the sentence, but Tim's grasp locked on his wrist again.

"Stay," Robin ordered. "Neither of us should spend the Waiting Time alone."

"You're sure?" Ted could not rise, not under that strong leader voice.

"Positive." The teen only relaxed when Ted slid under the covers, turning so his back was to the older man's chest. It might have taken Ted a while to go to sleep, the teen so vulnerably close to him, but the sheer trust involved lulled him under eventually. And, if by morning, the spooning was just as close, then he could learn if the flutter of eyelashes had been a ploy…or if it meant more.

* * *

There had not been people with true power when he came through. It was a world where neither sole survivors of a world lost had landed. A world where the so-called meta gene had never activated.

The people he had known were…mundane. Or did not exist.

Like Bruce.

This world's Waynes had been murdered…and Bruce had wound up in the state system, ending up a troubled man with a troubled past, and no inkling of how to handle the remnants of his trust funds.

Superman had been too appalled to try and direct the man to the potential he could have sworn lurked underneath the edges.

He grew lonelier, day after day, trapped in a world where science had not advanced enough to help him. Trapped in a world that viewed him as a god, a salvation to end all the hurts and pains.

Or the devil himself, come to wreak final endings and Judgment Day.

He got by, trying to attend to the truly important crises, wanting to help this dreary world become a good place. That he was alone was mostly by choice; this world's Lois was just as intrigued by Superman as ever.

He missed his Bruce.

The gnawing of an empty void started to shape him, started to make him as distant as any god had ever been.

Until the night he saw Slade Wilson, former Special Forces, currently a concerned father pushed too far.

The neighborhood was a good one. Gated community. A neighborhood for people who had made good in their world, and expected to live safely. A neighborhood that never should have been the target of terrorists. It did not fit the profile.

Of course, Superman had found this all out afterwards, investigating the appearance of the Terminator. A man who waged a war on terror in all its forms. He found out the man had lost his oldest child in the attack, that his middle child had lost the ability to speak in reaction to what he had seen, and his sole daughter had lost an eye.

His wife had reacted negatively, leaving him with his daughter, taking the surviving son with her. He shielded his daughter as best he could from his one-man war, but Superman already knew.

She would be his Robin in due time, even as Superman knew, without a doubt, that this world had delivered him a Batman. Slade Wilson was driven, and would not stop while he drew breath. The man had a mission.

And Superman knew, given time, the void he felt would be filled.

* * *

He doesn't know how long he ignored her not so coy teasing and flirting. One, she was young enough by the calendar to be his granddaughter, if he got perfectly honest with himself. Two, she worked for Roy, who was like a son to him, and that made it awkward. Three might have been the biggest reason.

Three was a man named Slade Wilson. Currently in prison for an attempted assassination on Star City's mayor. Hal was not afraid of the man. Hal had no fear of any mortal man.

But it did give him pause, to weigh the inevitable battle against the man against the sight of the man's very naked daughter crawling up his chest now. After all, battling Deathstroke might lead to combat where civilians might get hurt.

Then she was kneeling just right, and he could taste her, and all other thoughts fell to the wayside.

All but the thought that it was going to be a helluva good time to take her flying.

* * *

It had been difficult to cope with all he had seen, all he had done. In the end, no matter how much his team needed him to be the heart, he had needed to search his own and left them for a time.

His wandering brought him to his roots, made him become an observer all over again. He watched his fellow heroes pick up their lives from the crises. He watched when those lives did not mesh well with the lives they had possessed before.

Such as he now saw in young Victor Stone, struggling to be the leader he was born to be, for a team that barely held any cohesion in the face of continuous threats.

It was enough to coax the alien into revealing himself, inviting Cyborg to join him for walks, lunch, even just quiet discussions over the technology Victor so loved.

And they each began to see mirrors in the other. They were both at the core of powerful teams, the ones that everyone wanted to talk to, to sort out their own paths. All too often, their own needs and wishes were lost in the pursuit of healing their teams.

Maybe that was why the meetings took more private turns, within the sanctum of J'onn's mind, or Victor's room.

Either way, when both returned to their respective teams from the communion of shared trials, it was with a peace of knowing they were not so alone anymore.


End file.
